politeness strategies of suggesting utterances by …
TRANSCRIPT
POLITENESS STRATEGIES OF SUGGESTING UTTERANCES BY THE
FIRST SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF
MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF SURAKARTA
PUBLICATION ARTICLE
Submitted as a Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
for Getting Bachelor Degree of Education
in English Department
By
SONIA FITRI ASTUTI
A320130113
SCHOOL OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF SURAKARTA
2017
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POLITENESS STRATEGIES OF SUGGESTING UTTERANCES BY THE
FIRST SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF
MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF SURAKARTA
Sonia Fitri Astuti, Dra. Siti Zuhriah Ariatmi, M.Hum
Department of English Education
University of Muhammadiyah Surakarta
Jl. Ahamad Yani Tromol Pos 1 Pabelan, Kartasura, Surakarta (57127)
e-mail: [email protected]
ABSTRACT
This research aims at describing the strategies of suggesting and the
realization of politeness strategy of suggesting strategies used by the first semester
students of English Department of Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta. The
data used in this research are utterances which are used by the first semester
students. The researcher use Discourse Completion Task (DCT) to collect the
data. The techniques of analyzing data are making the DCT scenario,
documenting the data, analyzing the findings and drawing conclusion. The data
are analyzed by using the theory of suggesting strategy (Flor, 2005) and theory of
politeness (Brown and Levinson, 1987). The researcher found that: (1) there are
three types of suggesting strategies used by the students namely; direct suggestion
takes 15%, conventionalized form takes 34%, indirect suggestion takes 1%. The
utterances which do not belong to suggesting strategy take 50%. There are 22% of
the students who use the suggesting strategy appropriately, and 78% of the
students use suggesting strategy inappropriately because they fail to choose the
appropriate suggesting strategy in relation with the power property of the
speakers, the distance among the speakers and the seriousness of the case that
makes them are over polite and impolite, (2) there are four types of politeness
strategies used by the students namely: bald-on record takes 30%, positive
politeness takes 36%, negative politeness takes 23%, bald off record takes 3%.
The utterances which do not belong to politeness strategy take 9%. There are 36%
of the students who use politeness strategy appropriately and 64% of the students
use politeness strategy inappropriately because they fail to choose the appropriate
politeness strategy in relation with the power property of the speaker, the distance
among the speakers and the seriousness of the case.
Keywords: suggesting strategies, descriptive qualitative, politeness
strategies.
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POLITENESS STRATEGIES OF SUGGESTING UTTERANCES BY THE
FIRST SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF
MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF SURAKARTA
Sonia Fitri Astuti, Dra. Siti Zuhriah Ariatmi, M.Hum
Department of English Education
University of Muhammadiyah Surakarta
Jl. Ahamad Yani Tromol Pos 1 Pabelan, Kartasura, Surakarta (57127)
e-mail: [email protected]
ABSTRAK
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan strategi dalam memberikan
saran dan penggunaan kesantunan yang digunakan oleh mahasiswa semester satu
jurusan pendidikan bahasa Inggris Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta. Data
yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah ujaran-ujaran yang digunakan
mahasiswa semester satu. Peneliti menggunakan Discourse Completion Task
(DCT) untuk mengumpulkan data. Teknik yang digunakan untuk menganalisis
data adalah membuat naskah DCT, mendokumentasikan data, menganalisis data
temuan dan menarik kesimpulan. Data dianalisis menggunakan teori memberikan
saran (Flor, 2005) dan teori kesantunan (Brown and Levinson, 1987). Peneliti
menemukan bahwa: (1) terdapat tiga tipe strategi dalam memberikan saran; direct
suggestion (15%), conventionalized form (34%), indirect suggestion (1%). Ujaran
yang tidak termasuk dalam straegi memberi saran ada 50%. 22% mahasiswa
menggunakan strategi memberi saran dengan tepat dan 78% mahasiswa tidak
menggunakan strategi memberi saran dengan tepat karena mahasiswa tersebut
gagal dalam memilih strategi yang tepat sesuai dengan kekuasaan yang dimiliki
pembicara, hubungan antara pembicara dan pendengar serta kegentingan situasi,
sehingga mereka menjadi tidak sopan dan terlalu sopan, (2) terdapat empat tipe
strategi kesantunan yang digunakan mahasiswa; bald-on record (30%), positive
politeness (36%), negative politeness(23%) dan bald off record (3%). Ujaran yang
tidak termasuk dalam strategi kesantunan ada 9%. 36% mahasiswa menggunakan
strategi kesantunan dengan tepat, dan 64% mahasiswa tidak menggunakan strategi
kesantunan dengan tepat karena mereka gagal dalam memilih strategi kesantunan
yang tepat sesuai dengan kekuasaan yang dimiliki pembicara, hubungan antara
pembicara dan pendengar serta kegentingan situasi, sehingga mereka menjadi
tidak sopan dan terlalu sopan
Kata kunci: strategi member saran, descriptif kualitatif, strategi kesantunan.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Language act performed by producing utterances is called speech act
(Yule, 1996:48). When the speakers say something, they will expect that the
hearer will be affected by those utterances. Speech act consists of three related
acts, they are; locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. Yule
(1996:53) classified illocutionary act into five acts. They are declaration,
representatives, expressives, commisives, and directives. Directives are the
kinds of illocutionary act in which the speaker use an utterance to get someone
else to do something (Yule, 1996:54).
One of the primary and essential acts of directive is suggesting act.
People sometimes give suggestions to the others when they get confused or
misbehave. Suggestion is a language act by which one person guides the
thoughts, feelings, or behaviours of another. Rintell in Flor (2005:168) states
that when the speaker uses suggestion, the speaker asks the hearer to do
something that the speaker believes it will benefit the hearer. Suggestion is a
common speech act which is frequently used in people’s daily interactions.
Unconsciously, people tend to use words to make suggestions in
communication. As English language learners, students of English department
have to know how to express utterances in English appropriately. English
Department students have different background of languages. Most of them
speak in their first languages or their second languages. In this research, the
researcher would like to know how English department students, especially
first semester students, express their suggestions in foreign language, i.e.
English. The researcher chooses first semester students because most of them
are not aware of the words they use to give suggestions and how the politeness
strategies used to express the suggestions.
Politeness holds very important role in communication in order to deliver
speaker’s intended message. In delivering the utterances, being polite is
essential in order to maintain the mutual understanding and maintain good
social relationship among the speakers. However, in some English language
teaching and learning activities, politeness receives less attention. In English
department of Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta, the lesson goal does
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not mention politeness in teaching functional conversation, yet the lesson goal
is focused on the application and the mastery in using various kinds of
utterances. Politeness deserves to be given the emphasis in teaching English
especially to the students who lack pragmatic competence, so they will not
produce grammatically flawless speech that nonetheless fails to achieve its
communicative aims.
One of the most famous and influential theories on politeness is proposed
by Brown and Levinson (1987) which is a face-saving view on politeness.
According to Brown and Levinson (1987), directive utterance especially
suggestion, is considered as intruding into the hearer's world by performing an
act that concerns what the hearer should do. It threatens either the hearer’s or
the speaker’s face-wants. Face in this manner is the public self-image that
every member wants to claim for himself. Politeness strategies are used to
minimize the Face Threatening Act (FTA) when the speaker wants to give
suggestion to the other people. There are four strategies of politeness; bald on
record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off record (Brown and
Levinson, 1987:92).
There are some previous researches which are related to this research.
The first researcher, Jayantri (2014) conducted a research which focused on the
pragmalinguistic forms used in the suggestion and the differences of strategies
suggestions both by fourth semester female and male students of English
Department Muhammadiyah University in the speaking class 2011. The
research resulted that there are eight kinds of suggestion utterance: direct
performative verb, direct noun of suggestion, conventionalized forms
possibility/probability, conventionalized forms should, conventionalized forms
conditional, indirect impersonal, hints, and certain modals and semi-modals
used
The second researcher, Paramita (2016) conducted a research to describe
the type of suggestions used by male and female characters in the novel Can
You Keep A Secret?, to analyze the politeness strategies employed by the
characters in making suggestions and to find out the factors influencing the
differences of suggestions issued by male and female characters. The data are
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taken from the dialogues containing suggestions uttered by both male and
female characters. The result of the research showed that: (1) there are three
types of suggestions presenting in the data, they are direct suggestion,
conventionalized form of suggestion and the last is indirect suggestion, (2) in
terms of politeness strategy, the research shows that all of the direct
suggestions always employ bald on record, indirect suggestions can never use
bald on record strategy, while suggestions in conventionalized form are mostly
loaded with bald on record, but can be occasionally loaded with another
politeness strategy, such as positive politeness, (3) although gender is not a
significant factor, but gender may influence the choice of suggestions and the
other factors which influence the choice of suggestions are power, social
distance and the size of imposition.
The benefit of this research consists of theoritical benefit and practical
benefit. Theoritically, this research is expected to give valuable contribution in
linguistics research, especially in the field of pragmatics and politeness on
education. Practically, this research is expected to enrich the researcher and the
reader’s knowledge, especially English teacher so that they can apply it in
teaching learning process to help the students to reach the effective
conversation, and give pragmatic awareness views.
2. RESEARCH METHOD
The type of this research is descriptive qualitative research. The object of
this research are suggesting strategies and the politeness strategies of
suggesting utterances used by the first semester students of Muhammadiyah
University of Surakarta.
The data are collected by using Discourse Completion Task (DCT). In
DCT, the students are asked to complete an empty space of a short
conversation involving in a written situational description with relevant
context. In collecting the data, the researcher takes these following
procedures: (1) making the scenario of DCT, (2) distributing the scenario in
the class, (3) documenting the data, and (4) coding the data based on the
number of DCT, the number of data, the strategy used and the specification of
the DCT. To analyze the collected data, the researcher takes these following
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procedures: (1) analyzing the strategies of suggesting utterances made by the
students based on Flor’s theory, (2) analyzing the politeness strategy based on
Brown and Levinson’s theory, (3) summarizing the findings into the table, (4)
discussing the findings and (4) drawing conclusion.
3. RESEARCH RESULT AND DISCUSSION
In this section, the researcher presents the result of the discussion as follows:
3.1 The Influence of Social Status and Familiarity in Students’
Suggesting Utterances
From the findings and data analysis, the researcher distributes the
percentage of suggesting strategies used by the students in the chart
below:
Chart 1.1 Percentage of Suggesting Strategies Used By the Students
From chart 1.1 the researcher finds several strategies of suggesting
used by the students, namely direct suggestion (DS), conventionalized
form of suggestion (CF) and indirect suggestion (IS). The researcher also
finds that there are students who do not use strategy of suggestion (NS). It
can be seen that 15% of the students use direct suggestion, 34% use
conventionalized form of suggestions, 1% use indirect suggestion and
50% of the students do not use any suggestion strategy. 15% of the
students prefer to use direct suggestion because they want to give their
suggestion directly and to show their closeness with the hearer. 34% of
the students prefer to use conventionalized form because they do not want
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
DS CF IS NS
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to sound authoritative. They use mitigating device such as modals, semi-
modals, conditionals, recommendations in their suggestion utterances to
weaken the force and authority. 1% of the students use indirect suggestion
because they want to show some respect towards the hearer, so they want
to express their suggestions indirectly. In addition, 50% of the students
prefer to use the other sentences to express their suggestion which do not
belong to any suggestion strategy.
Moreover, there is correlation between social status and familiarity
with suggesting strategies used by the students. The researcher presents it
on the table below:
Table 1.1 the Correlation between Social Status and Familiarity with Suggesting
Strategies
DCT Familiarity Social Status Suggesting Strategy Used by
the Students
1 Close Lower Conventionalized Form
2 Close Equal Indirect Suggestion
3 Familiar Higher Conventionalized Form
4 Unfamiliar Equal Conventionalized Form
5 Familiar Equal Indirect Suggestion
6 Familiar Lower Indirect Suggestion
7 Unfamiliar Higher Direct Suggestion
8 Close Higher Conventionalized Form
9 Unfamiliar Lower Indirect Suggestion
From the table above, the students use conventionalized form when
they have close relationship with the hearer and have lower status, when
they are familiar with the hearer and have higher status, when they have
equal status but unfamiliar and when they are close to the hearer and have
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higher status. Meanwhile, the students use indirect suggestion when they
are close to the hearer and have equal status, when they are familiar and
have equal status, when they are familiar and have lower status, and when
they have unfamiliar relationship with the hearer and have lower status.
Lastly, the students use direct suggestion when they are unfamiliar with
the hearer and have higher status.
Furthermore, the researcher distributes the percentage of suggesting
strategies and its appropriateness of each DCT scenario on the table
below:
Table 1.2 List of Percentage of Suggesting Strategy and the Appropriateness
DCT
Appropriate Inappropriate
DS CF IS Total
% DS CF IS NS
Total
%
1 8% - - 8% - 46% 33% 13% 92%
2 - - - 0% 33% - 67% - 100%
3 - 37% - 37% 37% - 22% 4% 63%
4 - 42% - 42% 25% - - 33% 58%
5 - 33% - 33% 25% - - 42% 67%
6 - 25% - 25% 33% - 33% 9% 75%
7 46% - - 46% - 33% 13% 8% 54%
8 29% - - 29% - 37% 17% 17% 71%
9 - - 75% 75% 4% 21% - - 25%
Based on the table 1.2, the researcher finds that the students use
suggesting strategy inappropriately in all DCT scenarios. 22% of the
students use suggesting strategy appropriately, and 78% of the students
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use suggesting strategy inappropriately that makes the suggestion
utterances impolite and/or over polite.
In DCT 1, 92% of the students fail to choose the appropriate
suggesting strategy in relation with the distance between the speaker and
the hearer. In DCT 2, 100% of the students fail to choose the appropriate
suggesting strategy in relation with the power property of the speaker and
the distance between the speaker and the hearer. In DCT 3, 63% of the
students fail to choose the appropriate suggesting strategy in relation with
the seriousness of the case and the distance between the speaker and the
hearer. In DCT 4, 58% of the students fail to choose the appropriate
suggesting strategy in relation with the power property of the speaker and
the distance among the speakers. In DCT 5, 67% of the students fail to
choose the appropriate suggesting strategy in relation with the distance
between the speaker and the hearer. and the seiousness of the case. In
DCT 6, 75% of the students fail to choose the appropriate suggesting
strategy in relation with the distance between the speaker and the hearer.
In DCT 7, 54% of the students fail to choose the appropriate suggesting
strategy in relation with the distance among the speakers and the
seriousness of the case. In DCT 8, 71% of the students fail to choose the
appropriate suggesting strategy in relation with the power property of the
speaker and the distance between the speaker and the hearer.
Flor (2005) states that the sub-strategies of direct suggestion are
using performative verb and imperative. However, the researcher found
that the speaker can use the word “better” as it shows that the speaker
express the suggestion by directly utter their intention. The researcher
also found that in indirect suggestion, the speaker can use the other
structures of sentence other than impersonal sentence as long as it is
meant to express the suggestion by indirectly utter the intention.
3.2 The Influence of Social Status and Familiarity on the Politeness
Strategies of Students’ Suggesting Utterances
In this part, the researcher discusses the politeness strategies used by
the students and its appropriateness. Based on the findings and data
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analysis, the researcher distributes the percentage of the politeness
strategy used by the students in the following chart below:
Chart 1.2 Percentage of Politeness Strategy Used by the Students
Based on chart 1.2 the researcher finds four types of politeness
strategies used by the students namely: bald on record (BO), positive
politeness (PP), negative politeness (NP) and off record (OR). The
researcher also finds that there are students who do not use politeness
strategy in their utterances. 36% of the students use bald-on record
because they want to utter their intention with maximum efficiency by
directly addressing the hearer, 9% use positive politeness because they
want to minimize the impact of the FTA by using identity marker and
exaggerating, 41% use negative politeness because they want to satisfy
the hearer’s face and not impose the hearer’s territory by begging for
forgiveness or apologizing, being tentative and using questions, and 3%
use off record strategy because they want to be indirect and let the hearer
interpret their suggestion by using hints. Meanwhile, 9% of students’
utterances do not belong to politeness strategy and 4% of the students use
combination of politeness strategy because they want to show their
closeness with the hearer by not imposing the hearer’s territory .
Moreover, there is correlation between social status and familiarity
with politeness strategies used by the students. The researcher presents it
on the table below:
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
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Table 1.3 the Correlation between Social Status and Familiarity with Politeness
Strategies
DCT Familiarity Social Status Suggesting Strategy Used by
the Students
1 Close Lower Negative Politeness
2 Close Equal Positive Politeness
3 Familiar Higher Bald-on Record
4 Unfamiliar Equal Bald-on Record
5 Familiar Equal Negative Politeness
6 Familiar Lower Negative Politeness
7 Unfamiliar Higher Positive Politeness
8 Close Higher Bald-on Record
9 Unfamiliar Lower Negative Politeness
Based on table 1.3, the researcher finds that the students use bald-on
record in the situation when the speaker is familiar to the hearer and have
higher status, when the speaker is unfamiliar to the hearer and have equal
status, and when they are close to the hearer and have higher status.
Meanwhile, the students use positive politeness in the situation where the
speaker is close to the hearer and have equal power, and where the
speaker is unfamiliar to the hearer and have higher status. Lastly, the
students use negative politeness in the situation where the speaker is close
to hearer and have lower status, where the speaker is familiar to the hearer
and have lower and equal status, and where the speaker is unfamiliar to
the hearer and have lower status.
Furthermore, the researcher distributes the percentage of politeness
strategies of all the DCT scenarios and its appropriateness in the table
below:
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Table 1.4 List of the Percentage of Politeness Strategies and the Appropriateness
D
C
T
Appropriate Inappropriate
BO PP NP OR Total
% BO PP NP OR NPS Com.
Total
%
1 25% - - - 25% - 4% 54% - 12% 17% 75%
2 - 50% - - 50% 30% - 4% 8% 8% - 50%
3 58% - - - 58% - - 17% 8% 17% - 42%
4 - - 34% - 34% 58% - - - 8% - 66%
5 - 17% - - 17% 25% - 54% 4% - - 83%
6 - - 63% - 63% 25% - - - 8% 4% 37%
7 59% - - - 59% - - 21% 6% 6% 8% 41%
8 - - - - 33% 41% - 38% 8% 13% - 100%
9 - - - 8% 8% - - 79% - 13% - 92%
Based on the table 1.4 the researcher finds that there are 38% of the
students who use politeness strategy appropriately and 62% use
politeness strategy inappropriately that makes the utterances are impolite
and/or over polite.
In addition, the students use suggesting strategy inappropriately in
DCT 1, DCT 2, DCT 3, DCT 4, DCT 5, DCT 8 and DCT 9. In DCT 1,
75% of the students fail to choose the appropriate politeness strategy in
relation with the distance between the speaker and the hearer. In DCT 2,
50% of the students fail to choose the appropriate politeness strategy in
relation with the power property of the speaker and the distance between
the speaker and the hearer. In DCT 3, 42% of the students fail to choose
the appropriate politeness strategy in relation with the power property of
the speaker and the hearer. In DCT 4 and DCT 5, 66% and 83% of the
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students fail to choose the appropriate politeness strategy in relation with
the distance among the speakers. In DCT 8 , 100% of the students fail to
choose the appropriate politeness strategy in relation with the distance
between the speaker and the hearer. Lastly, 92% of the students in DCT 9
fail to choose the appropriate politeness strategy in relation with the
power property of the speaker and the distance between the speaker and
the hearer.
4. CLOSING
Based on the analysis of finding and discussion, the researcher draws
conclusion that the students do not use suggesting strategy and politeness
strategy appropriately because they fail to choose appropriate strategy in
relation with the power property of the speaker, the distance among the speaker
and the seriousness of the case.
Pragmatic competence must be accommodated in teaching English skills
especially speaking and writing skills so the students or learners can
understand more about the importance of pragmatic competence such as the
appropriate strategy in delivering their utterances and the politeness strategy in
order to achieve the success in communication. In order to make the students
achieve the pragmatic competence, the teachers should pay more attention in
teaching the use of language properly in certain situations. The teachers and
lecturers should teach politeness because it is very important in communication
to maintain mutual understanding and good social relationship among people.
The teachers and lecturers also should pay more attention not only in how the
strategy of delivering acts of language in formal or non-formal situation, but
also seeing the power property of the interlocutors, who the interlocutors are
and the relationships between the speaker and the hearer.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universal in
Language Usage. London: Cambridge University press
Flor, Alicia M. 2005. “A Theoretical Review of the Speech Act of Suggesting:
Towards a Taxonomy for its Use in FLT”. Journal of Pragmatic. Vol.
18. Accessed on October 12, 2016
(https://rua.ua.es/dspace/bitstream/10045/5216/1/RAEI_18_08.pdf)
Jayantri, Kecik. 2014. Pragmatic Analysis on the Suggestion Utterances
Conveyed By the Students of Fourth Semester of English Department of
UMS in the Speaking Class. Surakarta: Muhammadiyah University of
Surakarta.
Paramita, Ressani E. 2016. Politeness Strategies in Suggestions Employed by
Male and Female Characters in the Novel Entitled “Can You Keep A
Secret?” (Pragmatic Approach). Surakarta: Sebelas Maret University.
Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.